by Amanda Abram
“That makes no sense,” I said. “What kind of parent suggests their teen son throw a party when they’re away?”
“The kind of parent who has made a terrible mistake and is now desperately trying to make amends with his son,” he replied with a mischievous grin. “So, are you in?”
I hesitated, eyeing him curiously. Why wasn’t this conversation awkward for him? Why didn’t he seem uncomfortable talking to me? The last time we saw each other, we were kissing each other in his bedroom, and now he was inviting me to his party like nothing had ever happened between us.
“I have to work Saturday night,” I said finally. “But I might try to stop by on my way home.”
“Cool.” The corners of his mouth upturned into a sincere smile before he moved to walk past me. Like our conversation was over. Like that was all he wanted to talk to me about.
“Oh yeah, by the way,” he said, stopping next to me. “About last night…”
My breath hitched in my throat. This was it. The talk I’d been dreading. I opened my mouth to say we should wait to discuss things later, in a more private setting, but he interrupted me before I could get a word out.
“We don’t have to, you know, have a big talk about it. It was a mistake, and I promise it will never happen again. So, can we maybe just pretend like it never happened?”
In the blink of an eye, I went from feeling confused to feeling irritated as all sorts of questions began swimming around inside my head. He thought our kiss was a mistake? How could he make that claim? Especially after telling me point blank that he wanted me? Had he lied about that? And if so, why had he lied about that?
“Pretend like what never happened?” I played along through clenched teeth.
Dylan grinned and ruffled my hair. “That’s my girl.”
I gaped at him as he turned and walked off without even saying goodbye.
What the hell was that all about? Why did he seem so unaffected by what had happened between us?
“How did that go?” Lauren asked, appearing suddenly at my side.
“I have no idea,” I replied as I watched Dylan stop halfway down the hallway to talk to a group of senior girls. At the center of that group was none other than Claire Wheeler, who appeared to be very happy to see him.
He proceeded to say something to them, and they all nodded with excitement. He must have just invited them to his party. Claire then said something back to him that made him laugh and a sharp pain shot through the center of my chest.
Lauren’s eyebrows shot up as she observed their exchange. “He seems to be taking it well. Assuming you two already had the talk.”
“We didn’t,” I said. “He did the talking, and he said what happened last night meant nothing, it would never happen again, and that we should just pretend it never happened.”
“Ouch.” Lauren gently rubbed my back with her hand. “Are you okay?”
I forced a smile onto my face. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? That was pretty much everything I was planning on saying to him, anyway, and he saved me from having to say it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’m gonna head to homeroom,” I said, cutting her off. “I’ll see you later.”
As I walked toward my locker, I glanced back over at Dylan and Claire one more time. They were still engaged in what looked like a pleasant conversation.
Tearing my eyes away from them, I frowned as I continued forward, ignoring the lump that was rapidly beginning to form in my throat.
It seemed like maybe Dylan had decided he didn't want me after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Well, I have some good news and some bad news for everyone,” Mrs. Andrews said, rising from her desk in the front of the classroom later that afternoon. “The bad news is that I have a whole new set of catastrophic events for everyone to work through.” She held up a stack of papers as if to prove it. “But the good news is that I have a lot of papers to grade, so I’m just going to let you pair up with your partners and work together during class instead of assigning it as homework.”
Most of the kids in the room seemed excited about that, because it meant that we basically had a free period to just socialize. Lauren, on the other hand, seemed annoyed. Probably because she had nobody to pair up with.
“This is so unfair,” she whined to me in a whisper. “I always have to do everything by myself.”
“Hey, you’re the one who volunteered to be single,” I reminded her.
She thought about it for a second. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I guess I made the right decision. I mean, look at all the problems it has caused you.”
At that, my gaze flickered over to Dylan, who was looking indifferent to the idea of having to partner up for the period. He took the piece of paper Mrs. Andrews handed him with a lackluster smile before turning his head and looking in my direction.
I quickly looked away and began scribbling gibberish in my notebook as I waited for Mrs. Andrews to get to my row. Once she was done handing out the assignments, half the class started getting out of their seats and making their way toward their partners. I held my breath and kept my eyes focused on my notebook while Dylan made his way over to me. I waited until he’d pushed an empty desk against mine and sat down next to me before I finally acknowledged him.
“Hey,” I said casually.
“Hey,” he greeted me. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.” I kept my eyes glued to my notebook. “How’s it going with you?”
“Great,” he said, and I finally turned my head to look at him. He had a big grin on his face, as if things really were going great. “But I’m sure that will change as soon as we start going through this list.”
“I’m sure.” I looked down at the piece of paper but didn’t bother to read any of the words on it.
“So, are you excited for your party on Saturday?” I asked him instead.
“Yeah. Should be fun.”
“Totally.” I motioned over toward Lauren. “Lauren’s real excited too. She’s bringing her new boyfriend, Jake. She can’t wait for me to meet him.”
“Cool,” he said as he began perusing the list.
“Yeah.” I paused. “And she’s going to ask him to bring his best friend. She wants me to meet him, too.”
It was true. As soon as I told Lauren about Dylan’s party, she said it would be the perfect opportunity for me to meet Jake’s best friend. He was the guy she was going to set me up with had I gone on the double date with her and Jake last weekend.
I watched closely to see if that would elicit any sort of reaction from him, but it didn’t. “That’s cool. The more the merrier.”
The grip on my pencil tightened so much I was lucky it didn’t break in my hand. “Yeah,” I said in a controlled voice, “Lauren says he and I have a lot in common and she thinks we would hit it off. She thinks we’d make a cute couple.”
Wait, what was I doing? Was I trying to make Dylan jealous? What was wrong with me?
His eyes hardened as they focused on the piece of paper in front of him. With a scowl, he muttered, “What the hell? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I blinked in surprise at his reaction. He seemed more perturbed than I thought he’d be, and I couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit of satisfaction from it. I had to struggle to keep a smug smile from forming on my face.
He held up the list and glowered at me. “A pipe burst.”
The urge to smile quickly dissipated as I squinted at him in confusion. “Huh?”
“One of our pipes froze and then burst.” He pointed to the top of the list he was holding in his hand. “We now have a flooded basement.”
Oh, so his sudden foul mood was because of our stupid assignment, not because he was jealous.
“So what?” I mumbled, slouching back in my chair.
“Cass, this is a nightmare. We’ll have to hire someone to fix the pipe, and then hire someone to pump all the water out of the basement. And who knows what kind of damage all
that water did to our stuff?”
He was obviously more interested in dealing with our fake catastrophic events than he was talking about his party, and that was fine. I didn’t need him to be jealous of me and some other guy potentially getting together. What would that achieve? Despite the fact our post-kiss conversation earlier had been brief and anti-climactic, it had covered all the bases, and we were now on the same page.
We were back to being nothing but project partners to each other, and that was how I was going to treat him going forward.
“Relax,” I sighed. “You make a decent amount of money, right? It should be fine. I’m sure we have some money saved up.”
Dylan opened his notebook and flipped to a page that had a bunch of numbers scrawled across it. “Not really. Ever since Madeline was born, money has been kind of tight.” He paused as a contemplative look came over his face. “Maybe I’ll fix the pipe myself, and we’ll just get one of those special vacuums that sucks up water. After that, we’ll assess the damage to our stuff.”
“What? No. No way. You’re not going to fix the pipe yourself.”
“Why not?”
“Do you know anything about piping? Anything at all?”
“No, but there is an internet full of how-to videos. I’m sure I could follow along with them.”
I rolled my eyes. “No. I’m putting my foot down on this one. You may think this will save us money, but you’re just going to make the problem worse, and we’ll still have to hire a professional anyway.”
Dylan shook his head in mock disappointment. “Oh, Briggs, you have such little faith.”
“Look,” I said defensively, “my dad has tried to fix things around the house before and it always ends badly, so I’m speaking from personal experience here.”
With a deep sigh, he held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, fine. I won’t fix it myself. That just means we may have to borrow some money from Madeline’s college fund.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot to tell you—Madeline’s not going to college,” I said matter-of-factly.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And why is that?”
I smiled. “She wants to get into modeling instead. Because, as you know, she’s drop-dead gorgeous.”
“Naturally,” he said with a nod.
“In fact, she just signed a million-dollar contract with a modeling agency.”
He looked impressed. “Really? Well then, I guess she can help us pay for all of this.” He pointed down at the list and then paused. “Wait, how old is Madeline now?”
“She just turned eighteen. She’ll be graduating high school in just a few months.”
“Wow,” he breathed. “They grow up fast, don’t they?”
“In the blink of an eye,” I agreed.
Dylan met my gaze and we shared a grin and chuckle. Role-playing with him had become so easy. Even though I was still annoyed with him and confused about where exactly we stood, I was able to set that all aside and just get lost in our little pretend life together.
I guess somewhere along the way I’d started to like being pretend married to him.
“Hey,” he said, his smile faltering slightly. He lowered his voice and leaned in closer to me. “Are we okay?”
I swallowed hard as my own smile faded. “Yeah, we’re okay.”
His eyes scanned my face, searching for any indication I might have been lying. “Are you sure? Because I know our ‘talk’ earlier was a little abrupt, but I just felt that, given the circumstances, it would be best not to get into some long, drawn-out conversation about everything. I mean, we both know nothing can happen between…” He discreetly motioned between the two of us.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re on the same page.”
A look of relief washed over his face. “That’s great, Cass. Because I feel like we’ve become good friends lately, and I don’t want to lose that.”
I didn’t want to lose that either. Dylan had become my closest confidant since my breakup with Elijah. His friendship was important to me and I couldn’t let some silly little crush ruin that.
“You won’t lose it,” I assured him.
“You promise?”
I held out my pinky finger. “Pinky promise.”
With a small smirk, Dylan hooked his pinky around mine. “I’m gonna hold you to that promise, Briggs.”
“Please do,” I said, grinning. I glanced down at our list. “Okay, so, what did we decide to do with this burst pipe?”
He sighed. “We’ll hire a plumber and somebody to come pump the water out of our basement. We may need to move some money around in our budget, but it should be doable.”
I nodded as I wrote that down. “Thanks for listening to me and not trying to fix the pipe yourself.”
Dylan smiled and nudged my foot playfully with his. “What can I say? You’ve got me whipped. I’ll do anything you want. Or, in this case, I won’t do anything you don’t want, or whatever.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at that. “You’re going to make a great real husband someday.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and arched a brow. “Yeah? Well, we’ll see if I make it through being a pretend one first.”
I gave him a mischievous smile and a wink. “I’ll go easy on you.”
Realizing I was flirting with him, I wiped the smile off my face. “So, Elijah must be excited for your party too, huh?”
Dylan snorted. “He would be if he was going.”
I narrowed my eyes in confusion. “He’s not going?”
“Nope. Turns out that the one—and probably only—time his best friend has the opportunity to throw a party, it just so happens to land on the same Saturday he has to go to New Hampshire with his family for his grandparents’ fortieth wedding anniversary party.”
“Oh no. That must be killing him.”
“You have no idea,” he said with a smirk. He glanced down at the list and cleared his throat. “So, Lauren’s still trying to set you up with someone, huh?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I think she said his name is Chad.”
He groaned at that. “Chad? Seriously? That is such an Ellsworth Prep name. If you went to that school right now and made an announcement over the intercom asking for ‘Chad’ to come to the front office, I’m guessing about ninety-five percent of the school’s male population would show up.”
I suppressed a giggle. “That can’t be true.”
“Oh, it’s true. And I’ll bet his full name is Chad Chadwick Chadington the Third, and he wears an ascot and plays lacrosse.”
The suppressed giggle suddenly erupted from me as a loud laugh, causing half the class to turn and look at me.
My hand flew up to cover my mouth as Mrs. Andrews glanced up at me from her desk and arched a brow.
“Cassie? Is there something you find particularly funny about catastrophic events that you would like to share with the rest of the class?” she asked.
Everyone’s eyes were on me as they waited for my answer. “Um, no, Mrs. Andrews,” I mumbled as I felt my face beginning to burn. “Sorry.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Elijah was staring in my direction. When I turned my head to look at him, he glanced curiously between me and Dylan, as if wondering what was so funny.
“Maybe we should just stay on task,” I whispered, pointing to our list.
Dylan, clearly amused, nodded in agreement. “I think that’s a good idea.”
So, that’s exactly what we did. For the remainder of the period, we worked diligently, keeping things strictly project related. Not once did either one of us bring up the topic of parties or guys named Chad again, and by the end of class we had completed the entire assignment with a few minutes to spare.
When the bell rang, Lauren joined me at my desk. “I’ll be glad when this project is over. It’s kicking my ass.”
“Sounds like somebody needs a husband,” Dylan quipped as he gathered up his stuff.
Lauren narrowed her eyes into a glare.
“Excuse me? I don’t need a husband. I’m doing perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much.”
“Then why were you complaining?”
“I wasn’t complaining,” she said with a huff. She turned to me. “Cassie, was I complaining?”
I held up my thumb and index finger so there was only a sliver of a gap between them. “Maybe a little.”
Dylan stood from his desk and gave Lauren a smug smile just as Elijah appeared next to him.
“Hey guys,” Elijah said, greeting Dylan with a playful punch to the shoulder.
“Hey,” the three of us responded in unison.
He arched a brow as his eyes darted between me and Dylan. “So, what was so funny over here earlier?”
Dylan and I exchanged a quick, curious glance.
“Nothing,” I said, rising out of my chair. “Just something stupid Dylan said.”
Elijah grinned as if he understood. “Yeah, he says a lot of stupid things.”
“I do not,” Dylan grumbled, flinging his backpack over his shoulder.
“No, Elijah’s right,” Lauren said, making a face at Dylan. “You say stupid stuff all the time.”
Dylan threw me a desperate look. “You want to maybe chime in here and defend your husband?”
“Nah, I’m good,” I said with a sly grin.
“You all suck.” He shot each one of us a mock glare before turning and walking away.
“Aw, we love you, Dylan!” Lauren called after him with a giggle.
He responded by flipping her off over his shoulder without even looking back as he moved toward the door.
I started to giggle as well but choked on it when I watched as he stepped out of the classroom and was greeted by Claire Wheeler. He grinned as he leaned in and said something to her. She smiled brightly and nodded before they took off together down the hall.
My heart sank in my chest as I stared at the now-empty doorway they had just been standing in. Before yesterday, I didn’t even know Dylan and Claire knew each other, and now suddenly I was seeing them everywhere together. It shouldn’t have bothered me since he and I agreed to remain just friends, but I hated seeing how his face lit up when he talked to her. Or how she twirled her hair around her finger like she was flirting with him. Or how—